


Major and Commander Shepards

by TheShadowPanther



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: (also sort of), (sort of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Estrangement, F/M, Family Reunions, Fix-It, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowPanther/pseuds/TheShadowPanther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the N7 Mission in the Cerberus Labs on Sanctum, George Shepard picks up someone with whom she'd thought she'd never speak again. It's no one's fault - they're both stubborn idiots - but the fate of the galaxy being at stake has a funny way of changing one's perspective and priorities. </p><p>George, for one, is not going to complain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1: Post N7 Mission in Cerberus Labs

Only when the shuttle touched down in the cargo hold of the _Normandy_ did George breathe a sigh of relief. The sigh was echoed by the rest of the people in the shuttle, including the newcomer. Looking over at him, she wondered again what one person, obviously Alliance Navy, would be doing by himself (herself?) on a Cerberus base. It was all the more confusing since Admiral Hackett hadn't mentioned any other troops at that lab.

Even if another Admiral were independently investigating the lab, what were the odds that Hackett wouldn't have known about it? What were the odds that the other Admiral would send in a single soldier, even if he were a Corsair? Not high.

"Major?"

George looked over at Dr. T'soni, who looked - hesitant. A painfully familiar expression. Somehow she mustered up a smile for T'soni, through the lead suddenly dragging her bones down, her eyelids threatening the same.

"What's up, Liara?" Straightening, she automatically holstered her N7 Eagle and folded her arms across her chest. "Got any info off of that Reaper artifact data yet?"

"While I admire your faith in my capabilities, Major," T'soni said, smiling fondly, "I _have_ only had this data for approximately two minutes. I have, as your people say, only scratched the surface."

"Scratching the surface in two minutes? That's more than most people could do in that time," George pointed out. "Well, keep at it. When you've got something, you know how to reach me."

"I do, Major." T'soni dipped her head in assent and followed Vega out of the shuttle. As Steve went over the checks for the shuttle, George looked back at the stranger.

"How about you, soldier? You have a ship to get back to?"

The soldier snapped to attention, saluted. "Yes, ma'am," (s)he said in that helmet that distorted his/her voice. Standing up, the soldier was identifiable as a male, by his carriage and the splay of his legs. He was tall, taller than she (not a difficult feat, she thought with tired humor), and, in the red lighting of the shuttle, broken only by the light coming in from the cargo hold, was imposing. His armor suit, save for the Commander insignia on his collar, was an unrelieved black, his Kestrel helmet modded with a mask so all she could see was her reflection in the bug-eyed HUD staring back at her.

Suitably creepy, if he were, as she suspected, a Corsair.

"What ship is that, then?" she asked patiently, when the commander didn't elaborate.

The soldier startled. "Oh, uh, the _SSV Baghdad_ , ma'am. I'll see if I can hail them."

George nodded. "Might be a good idea, Commander," she said wryly, turning to leave the shuttle. "I'm sure the _Baghdad_ would be delighted to know the mission succeeded."

"Ma'am?"

Surprised, George looked back. The soldier was frozen in half-step, his hand in the middle of reaching for her. As if noticing his strange behavior, the soldier fell back into parade rest. "Permission to speak privately?"

"How privately, Commander?" she asked, her brain suddenly afire again. Worst-case scenarios flashed through her head, each one worse than the last. Indoctrination, the Reapers being on their tail, the _SSV Baghdad_ destroyed.

"It's nothing critical, ma'am," the soldier assured her. "Just...personal."

"Hm." George forced her shoulders to relax. Probably wanted to thank her for saving someone or other close to him. Weird that he wanted to do that in private, though. Normally people were only too happy to bray exactly how she'd saved them and over-effusive in their thanks, never mind that she didn't know them most of the time.

Exchanging a glance with Steve, who was discreetly looking out of the corner of his eye behind the commander's back, she nodded. "Permission granted. Come on, I'll show you around."

The commander fell in step with her as they finally left the Kodiak. Their footsteps were loud as they clomped across the cargo hold to the elevator. She didn't miss that Vega was studying the newcomer with sharp eyes, or that Steve had casually followed them to the station on the wall next to the elevator. Nodding her appreciation, she reached over to hit the button for Deck 3, crew quarters.

The elevator doors closed; thirty seconds and a brief feeling of flying later, they opened again on Deck 3. Burt, the passing security guard, stopped long enough to give her a salute.

"Over here," George said, gesturing to Life Support. The commander obediently followed her inside and over to the table, sitting when she did. "EDI, initiate debriefing protocol 'Arizona' and encryption protocol 'Foxtrot Yankee' on Deck 3, room: Life Support."

_"Understood, Major. Debriefing protocol 'Arizona' and encryption protocol 'Foxtrot Yankee' initiated in Deck 3, room: Life Support."_

"Thanks. You're a gem."

_"You're welcome, Major Shepard. Logging you out."_

"EDI?" the commander asked, cautiously.

"The _Normandy's_ VI," George said dismissively. "Now, what was so private you couldn't tell me on the shuttle?"

The commander hesitated, then reached his hands up to his helmet. George tensed, her hand going to her holstered Eagle. But the commander was only unbuckling his mask, then his helmet. He took the whole assembly off to reveal...

"Shortsie?!" George said blankly.

"Hey, big sis." The commander's face split into a giant grin, transforming him into the man she used to know so well. "It's great to see you!"

"Oh, so we are siblings after all?" George said pointedly, almost without meaning to.

John, her little brother John, her little brother John who was alive and right in front of her, had the grace to wince. "Yeah, I, uh, fucked up on that."

"No shit, Spock." George huffed a laugh, relief sagging her shoulders. "How long did it take you to figure that out?"

"About a month into CBR." John shifted in his seat.

She stared, then dropped her head forward on her neck. Shaking her head, she started laughing. "All those years, John, and not one email?"

"Hey, realizing I missed you didn't mean I was going to own up to it." John spread his hands. "You know Shepard stubbornness."

George made a face. She did know, all too well. "Shepard stubbornness is the only reason I made it through the last, Spirits, four years."

"...You mean six."

George looked up. John's face was blank, the perfect mask that all soldiers learned in Basic. But she knew her brother, and she could guess what he was trying to hide.

"Yeah, I mean six," she said simply.

John nodded, a sharp movement, but was otherwise silent.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "I always forget that I lost two years there. It just doesn't seem real, even after all this time. To me, it was like going to sleep in space one moment and waking up on an operating table the next."

"Two. Years." John 's voice was low and hurt, the only crack in his armor. "Two years I thought you were dead."

"I was dead," George said, crossing her arms against the urge to grip John by the shoulder. "There's no thinking I was dead, I _was_ dead."

"Why didn't you email me?" John was suddenly in her face, half his body lunged over the table and his hands slapped knuckles-first into the table. "Two years, Georgie, and I had to learn you were alive through the _extranet_!"

"What do you think was the first thing I wanted to do?" George hissed, putting her face right up into John's. "I wanted to tell you so badly, I thought my heart was fixing to burst with the pain!"

"Why didn't you?!" John roared, slamming his fist into the table again.

"Cerberus had bugs everywhere," she said, her eyes narrowing. "There was no way I could know that they wouldn't read any communications I sent out, never mind personal ones to my brother."

"You should have sent it anyway!" John looked as if he was going to abuse the table again, but clenched his hands at the last minute. "Anything would have been better than opening up the newsfeed and seeing 'Major Shepard, Alive?!' as the headline!"

"And what, have Cerberus trace your omnitool and discover your location?" George demanded. "What do you think they would have done if they had had not only Major Shepard, but also Commander Shepard in their clutches?"

John stared mutely at her, his expression a mixture of anger and pain.

"I couldn't and didn't trust them as far as I could throw them," George continued ruthlessly. "I didn't know what you were doing or where you were. I knew you were still in the Corsairs, but for all I knew, you were as likely to be in a war zone going up against hundreds of geth as you were to be sitting in your apartment browsing the newsfeed!"

"Skipper..." John seemed to crumple in on himself, his head bowing to rest on his hands while his back arched painfully.

George's anger fizzled as fast as it had arisen. "I know, Shortsie, I know," she sighed. She watched as if from a distance as her hand came up and rested on John's head, started to card through his buzz cut. "But I couldn't take the risk that by emailing you, I would be jeopardizing your life or your mission. I did ask Admiral Hackett to pass along that message to you, but that was about all I could do."

"And then you jettisoned an asteroid into Aratoht and landed yourself into six months of house arrest." John's voice was muffled by the pretty good try he was making of merging his head with his fists.

"Yeaaaaahh," George said, wincing. "I did kind of fuck that one up, didn't I?"

"No shit, Kirk." John lifted his head enough to send her a weak glare. "At least tell me you didn't do it on purpose."

His grimace reflected his own conflict about Aratoht, even as George raised her eyebrows. "Of course I didn't do it on purpose," she protested. "I tried to warn them, actually. But the comm link went down just as I was picking it up."

"Of course it did," John muttered, finally sitting back. "It always goes FUBAR right when it hurts the most."

George snorted her agreement. "What I can't believe is that you, who was there at Elysium, are asking me to tell you I didn't do it on purpose."

"Ugh, I know." John cracked a tired grin. "Fucking batarians, man. They're like fucking cockroaches."

"Survive anything, even a Reaper invasion," George agreed. "Too bad we're going to need their help if we're ever going to defeat the Reapers."

"How many left can there be?" John's forehead creased. "A lot of them were killed in Aratoht, and God knows how many we eradicated in the Skyllian Blitz and Torfan."

"Not many," George said grimly. "And the Hegemony isn't going to be happy when I talk to them. Most likely they're not going to give us anybody, but somehow I'm going to have to convince them to."

"Good luck," John offered unhelpfully. He put his hands behind his head, raised mocking eyebrows at George.

"Thanks," she answered dryly. "I'm going to need every bit of luck I can get with them."

"Better you than me," John snorted. "Every batarian I've seen hasn't ended up so well for them."

George grimaced. "Hasn't gone so well for them with me, either." Her wryness settled heavier into somberness. The millions of lives that had been destroyed because of her and her inability to get the comm up in time still rested uneasily in her stomach, but she'd had a lot of time during house arrest to think about it and come to acceptance, if not peace, with it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by EDI's voice overhead. _"Major Shepard,"_ she said, _"you have a message from Admiral Hackett in the vid room, marked 'urgent.' Shall I deactivate protocols 'Arizona' and 'Foxtrot Yankee'?"_

"Go ahead, EDI," George said, pushing up from the table. "Tell the Admiral I'm on my way."

_"Understood. Logging you out, Major Shepard."_

"Well, Shortsie," George said to John, who had also gotten to his feet. "Duty calls."

"Yeah." John's mouth pursed at the corner even as his eyebrows rose in a resigned look. "I gotta report back to my CO, anyway. I'm sure he's wondering what the hell's happened to me."

"Right, you did have to do that." George shook her head. "I forgot all about that."

"So did I." John smiled sheepishly, reminding her more strongly than ever of the boy he'd been on Mindoir. "Long-lost reunions can do that to a dude."

" _'Dude.'_ " George dragged a hand down her face. "I can't believe you're still using that godawful word. It went out of vogue _millennia_ ago."

"Na-aw!" John protested, following her to the door. "I'm using it, aren't I?"

"Ugh. Come here, you freak," George said, hauling John in by the shoulder. John's arms came around her instantly, squeezed her tight. She didn't mind, she was hugging John just as tightly. Spirits, but she'd missed him.

"Take care of yourself out there, all right," she said into his ear. "Just because our enemies are the Reapers is no reason to get yourself dead, y'hear?"

"Aye, aye, skipper," John said, not moving to sketch out the sardonic salute that usually followed those words on his lips.

George couldn't stop the helpless smile. "Go on now," she said, pulling away. "You've got your own CO to give you an ass-whooping for being irresponsible. Freak."

"Hey, that hurts," John pouted, though the effect was lost when he pulled on his creepy-ass helmet. The distortion of his voice was all the more jarring now that she knew who was really under there. "I guess I'll see you later, Major."

"You better, Commander." She returned John's salute, said, "Deck 5," when John hesitated. John sketched out another salute, this one definitely sardonic, then waved as the elevator doors closed on him.

Spirits. George sagged, all of her breath leaving her at once. Of all the things she'd thought would happen during this war, she wouldn't have expected running into her brother to be on the list. Thank the Spirits that he was alive and well, and apparently willing to be her little brother again.

'Course, death shifted perspectives like nothing else, but she didn't care. She'd missed her brother like a limb when he wouldn't speak to her. Having him back was like having a piece of herself slotted back into place again, relief and elation settling in under her ribcage and spreading outwards.

It wasn't a feeling she was used to. Having it made her feel like something else was going to go horribly wrong to make up for it. That was the way the galaxy seemed to work, give you good things, then pile worse things on top to remind you who was really in charge.

Still, as she took to the stairs to the CIC, the feeling of finally being able to breathe stayed with her. John's smile and his arms around her were like brands on her skin, echoes of sensation that she carried as if they weren't real. Truthfully, she wasn't sure they were. She wouldn't be surprised if she woke up and John had been just a dream. Even if it was, though, it was certainly a nice one, much better than the ones she'd been having lately.

She'd keep it.


	2. 2: email to gshepard from hthorne [decoded]

To: gshepard@alliance.net

From: hthorne@alliance.net

Subject line: **ENCRYPTED**

_\--Decoded message below--_

Major Shepard,

Heard from Shepard Jr. that you all had a nice heart-warming reunion on that fancy ship of yours. Now he's all fucking fired up and wants to transfer to the _Normandy_. You know how many fucking years I've trained that boy for the Corsairs? I had him nice and settled right where I wanted him, and then you have to go and fuck up not only my mission but him, too. With all due respect, I have to say you're the worst gorram ruttin' captain I've ever had the misfortune to contact, and you'd better take good care of Jr. and return him in one piece. We've just started on his true potential use, no need to fuck it up and make us fix the damage.

Don't make him go back to the colony trash he was when he came in here, y'hear?

Captain H. T. Thorne

_\--End of decoded message--_


	3. Timeline and Custom Shepard Profiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured this was too long for end-of-chapter notes for chapter 2, so made it its own chapter.

Timeline

**ME1** – takes place over a year, even with FTL travel  
 **Sometime shortly after ME1** – Shepard's promotion to Major   
**Shepard's death** – 2 years

**ME2** – spans a year and a half  
 **Between ME2 & ME3** \- Six months in house arrest for Aratoht  
 **ME3** – happens in a few very long, very short weeks

\--

Custom Shepard Profiles:

**Georgiana Wilhemina Shepard – "George" – George Harrison/P &P Georgiana, P&P Fitzwilliam Darcy (female ver.) – Colonist – Sole Survivor – Infiltrator**

**Johnson Styles Shepard – "John" or "Shortsie" – Michael Johnson (track)/John Lennon, Harry Styles – Colonist – War Hero – Sentinel**

\--

This story was inspired by my frustration over Shepard NOT getting any official recognition from the Alliance Navy for her heroic deeds in ME1, yet Alenko/Williams get on the fast track to three or four promotion in three and a half to four years? Hmm. Something seems off about that, don't you think?

It also followed up on my desire to have Shepard siblings who work together during ME3 to take down the 50,000 year old threat to the galaxy, _and_ feeds into my frustration over Shepard having to do everything herself/himself. There's enough party members to make two teams and yet no one wants to take up the reins? Not even Garrus? (Granted, Garrus would prefer to watch Shepard's six (in more ways than one), but still, team leader experience, man. He's a _perfect_ TL and it was tragically wasted in ME3.) 

So, yeah, you could say there was quite a bit of frustration on my part. Throw in a dash of wish-fulfillment and presto! This poofs into being. *voila* 

More information regarding their names will (probably) follow in the story itself, if the story chooses to let me go forward with it. So far it refuses. Rather rude, really. 

For now, consider this story a two-shot. Other parts will be posted as soon as the ME muse comes back from Shep's apartment on Intai'sei.


End file.
